The Rookie
by Wolfrunner99-2
Summary: Pre-War: She was always looking up at the stars as a sparkling, until she grew older and her attention was demanded on the ground. She learned that the world around her could be just as beautiful as the shining stars above, even through prejudice, war, and unconquerable odds. Rated T for some violence and war.
1. Leaving Kaon

_**Just a story that came about when I wanted to practice on my writing. Decided to post it and here it is! I hope you like it!**_

She onlined her optics for the first time, not knowing where she was, or why she had been taken from her warm place within the Well, but at the same time, not minding at all. This place was so much prettier, with vaulting ceilings, intricate etchings, and detailed, ancient architecture. The ones holding her were even more so, and she giggled at the happy feelings in her spark, but she wanted to know what she was doing here. The All Spark, the one that everyone in the Well said was where you went when it was time to do what Primus wanted you to do. This was where everyone wanted to be. Was it her time now? But she didn't know what to do! Actually, she didn't know anything.

She squirmed as the one holding her handed her to a much bigger mech, and he didn't have the same connection to her spark as the femme did. Still, he felt like he was kind, so she was content to try to explore his armor. It was so bright and shiny! There was nothing like this in the… in the… oh, shiny!

Something new was shining above her, and she tried to grab it, but it didn't appear to be in her reach. She whined, reaching for it earnestly, but the one holding her only rumbled and shook, making a weird noise. She just wanted that, that… shiny, sparkly thing that was so far above her.

She was given to yet another mech, but this one felt like the femme that had held her the first time. He was there in her spark and she just pulled in all of those warm feelings that she didn't know the name of. How could she when she had just come into existence, and already her memories, more concepts, really, had faded until they were nothing more than strong pulls to the All Spark.

The little sparklet was taken away from the All Spark with the mech and femme she could feel in her spark, to a place where her light shone through cold glass that she couldn't reach from her sparkling berth, but her light was joined by others that occupied her time enough that she didn't fuss.

All too soon, to her creators, at least, she was learning to walk and talk, finally finding out that her designation was Starshine, a tribute to her constant reaching for the sparkling lights so far away, which were stars. She spent every waking moment of her sparklinghood staring up at those stars, but when she transitioned to her youngling frame, her optics were drawn lower to the ground by strict teachers, cruel peers, and scornful adults telling her to keep her helm out of the stars. Ordering her to do something meaningful. So she resolved to do so, but they still scoffed.

"Starshine! Are you paying attention?" her teacher snapped at her impatiently. The third frame youngling nodded calmly, having been listening to the lecture with half her processor while at the same time doing the homework that had yet to be assigned. As much as her helm was 'in the stars', she was at the top of her class and twenty vorns ahead of everybot else her age.

Her peers glared at her hatefully, eying her dull grey paint and bright silver chevron, something that all Praxians had. Most of all, their stares caught on her tucked sensory wings and burning red optics. The thing was, this wasn't Praxus, this was Kaon, and they all made sure to remind her of that every day. It didn't matter to her. She loved the city. She loved the constant buzz of life and the hard working mech and femmes. Her creators were engineers and had moved to Kaon shortly before she was onlined. While here, they had been threatened and attacked because they were Praxian, but they, too, refused to leave the city that had grown on them.

Her teacher snapped his digits at her again, annoyed. "Starshine, pay attention!"

"I am, sir," she replied, looking at her desk respectfully.

"Then stop looking out the window!" he ordered, stalking back up to the front of the room to continue his lesson while the other younglings snickered. "Now, Starshine, while I have your _full_ attention, what do you want to do when you transition into your adult frame? What will you add to our city?"

She knew that the 'our city' was his dig at her that she didn't belong. "I want to be an enforcer."

The others laughed while her teacher, a navy blue mech by the designation of Sharpshot, narrowed his optics at her inquisitively. "Stop laughing," he ordered the class sternly. They all muted their vocal processors, and she flared her sensory wings slightly in surprise. He normally encouraged their taunts and teasing.

"Sir?" she asked hesitantly.

"Why, Sharpshot? It's a stupid, sparkling idea! Everyone knows that femmes can't be enforcers, especially not the ones from Praxus! All any Praxian is good for is an entertainer, or scientist! They're too weak to do anything else! Everyone knows that!"

Sharpshot had a contemplative look on his faceplates as he turned away from his students, then softly called Starshine up to the front of the class. She slowly did as she had been told, processor spinning as it tried to run codes that weren't completed, and wouldn't be until she was in her adult frame, to uncover the reason she was in front of her peers.

"Metalhook, can you tell me what these are?" the teacher asked, gesturing to her sensory wings that rested on her back between her shoulder joints.

"Sensory wings," the youngling, an olive green, bulky miner brat, replied almost sarcastically. None of the other younglings had any respect for their teacher or appreciation for the education they were required to receive by the decree of Lord Protector Megatron and Optimus Prime. She raised her doorwings in defiance at that thought. Why couldn't they understand the opportunity they were being given? Free education, no matter what class you were in! Before, only the wealthiest could afford private tutors for their younglings, making the dividing line between the bots of Cybertron ever bigger.

"Do you know what they do? Anyone? Talon?"

"Sensing things?" the black mechling snapped.

"Yes, they are used for sensing things. These orns, they are used to detect changes in the environment, making science and engineering much safer because they'll know first if something has gone wrong. They're used to 'hear' music better, making it even more beautiful, and also used for balance, making Praxians very graceful. I'm sure that you all already know that they also are used as expression of emotion, sometimes more so than their faceplates. But more than that, all Praxian frames are built with battle computers and tactical programs, even as sparklings. During the great war against the Quintessons, they were some of the greatest warriors the last Prime and Protectorate had. Their grace and and advanced sensors made them some of the best fighters in our recorded history, able to take out whole battalions single-servoedly. Many thought that if they took off their sensory wings, ripped them out during battle, they would be incapacitated, able to be captured and enslaved by our enemies. Do any of you know what will instead happen if you take off a Praxian's sensory wing?"

The class was silent, waiting with baited vents for the answer. Starshine lowered her helm in shame, that part of her coding not being something that she was proud of. It was not something that any Praxian was proud of, and it was one of the major reasonings they had for being careful with the sensitive appendages.

"Nobot? They will go completely feral, relying on spark coding to function, destroying any creature in their path. That is one of the reasons Praxians rely so much on them to convey emotion. If a Praxian goes berserk and comes across another Praxian that has their sensory wings set in a submissive, not threatening position, they'll either leave them alone or snap out of it completely. If one of you were somehow brought into a berserk bot's attention, make yourselves as small as possible, look at the ground, and pray to Primus they don't think you're a threat."

The sea of red optics landed on Starshine in shock, and as though it was an order given on an airwave she didn't know, they all scrambled to the back of the room in panic. She lowered her wings submissively, stepping away from them as well if only to get them to calm down. The antennae on her helm folded down as well, making her feel half blind.

"So next time you should thank your lucky sparks that Praxians are some of the most kind sparked, understanding, and forgiving bots to walk among us. There _are_ Praxian enforcers, but they do not reside in common precincts, they are all in Iacon and Praxus, obviously, where their skills can be utilized to protect our leaders' home and the populace there. However, Metalhook was correct in saying that there are no femme enforcers."

She nodded, hoping that he would dismiss them soon, because the fear in their optics hurt her spark. They were looking at her like she was some kind of monster, and she wasn't. Did they suddenly wipe their memory banks of all the taunts, the cruel pushes and pulls on her sensory wings and antennae, the teasing that she didn't blame them for? How could a simple story make them think that their safety was in danger?

"Sir… may we leave?" she asked, her internal chronometer telling her that class had ended. He dismissed the class, and the younglings poured out, shooting distrustful glares her way. She flinched back, waiting a few moments before making to leave as well.

"Starshine, are you serious about being an enforcer?" Sharpshot asked. She nodded firmly.

"Then you will need to change some of your classes. I understand that your creators want you to continue with dance, and that can actually be useful, but if you want to stay ahead of the other recruits and improve your marginal chances of making it, you will have to start preparing now."

She froze, not understanding. "Why?"

He rolled his optics at her. "Because there is a very slim-"

"No, sir, I apologize, I meant to ask why you are… helping me," she explained.

"Because for the first time since you walked into my class, I had your full attention for more than a klick. If you can keep that up, I'll help you, even give you a recommendation to the precinct helm, but you're going to have to deal with the younglings avoiding you, and being on your own a lot."

"I… I already am, sir. The other younglings don't really like to…" she paused. To what? Bother her? They loved bothering her. Be seen near her, converse with her… "I don't belong, so they don't want to be around me," she finally finished.

"That also means that you will have to spend an extra joor or two every orn here to complete your studies and add some form of martial arts or self defence to your schedule."

She nodded at that, for once her thoughts not drifting back to the stars. "I will inform my creators and adjust my routine later this orn. That you, sir."

He nodded to her and she left, hurrying to her creator's complex that they had built and then gave out apartments to anyone who wished to live there and could afford the cost of the apartment. Not that they cost a lot of credits, it was more for maintaining the deed to the property and repairs when they were needed.

She smiled at the younglings that lived in 124, who were playing on the stairs. They waved back at her, not understanding the reactions most bots in the city would have given if she had so much as looked at them. They were too young and innocent to know of the hate.

"Starry! Starry, look what I made!" Lucky ordered cheerfully, the soft pink femmling showing off a drawing of an architecture design. Starshine may have been hated and bullied at Academy, but here she was almost a celebrity among the youngsters, spinning tales about the stars, telling them about her lessons, just having time for them when their creators were busy, and as much as many tried to despise her when they first moved in, tried to keep their younglings away from her little following, they always ended up in awe, and their creators were grateful for the impromptu, free sparklingsitter. She just had a knack for getting the little ones to calm down and imagine with her.

"That's amazing, Lucky! Good work," she complimented, smiling at the little femmling brightly before informing her politely that she needed to talk to her creators about something, but she might be able to come back and help her or listen to her talk about her orn in a few joors.

She raced up to her apartment, nearly knocking over her femme-creator as she keyed in the code and darted inside. "Oh no, I'm so sorry, Brightshine!" she apologized.

"Shh, don't you worry, my little star! I'm fine," the ivy green femme assured, sending love and amusement to her through their creator/creation bond. Brightshine was just as friendly and imaginative as her creation, she just put that creativity to better use. "You have something to talk to me about?"

She slowly told her the requirements Sharpshot had laid out, waiting for the response that it wasn't going to be allowed. Not that it happened. Her creators were very supportive in everything she did, she just worried about how they would react to her dropping music and art. It was part of their culture, part of Praxus that she would never be able to actually experience.

They were a little disappointed with her, but they agreed, worrying only about the later joors that would mean she would have to walk back in the dark. She just assured them that she would be fine, and then she thanked them for allowing her to do what she wished to get to her goal. That was how she had been raised, to be polite and respectful to everyone, no matter how mad you got with them.

Next orn, she began her new schedule, leaving long before her creators awoke and returning long after they had gone into recharge. The only proof that she still existed to them was the ever constant assurances over their bond, though more often than not the love was tainted by exhaustion, frustration, and determination on Starshine's end. She was working herself to the struts with all of her work, and she hadn't even begun to scratch the surface, according to Sharpshot. She resigned herself to ask her creators for another favor.

"You want to be upgraded to your adult frame?" Brightshine whispered, while Lockgear, her mech-creator, just stared at her.

"Starshine… that is a very big decision, have you thought this through?" he asked worriedly.

"Yes, creators, I have. Please. I _need_ this."

"Gear… she's practically an adult already," Brightshine murmured lowly.

"Not yet, though. She's our little femmling, Shine! Twenty vorns too young to upgrade!"

"Age means nothing to us," she reminded gently.

"Lockgear, I would not be upgrading immediately. If Sharpshot agrees that it is the best course of action, then I would begin to design a frame, with your assistance if you are willing, the process taking at least another vorn to complete," Starshine assured.

"Talk to your teacher first, and then we will discuss this again," Lockgear ordered after a moment, then he sent warmth to her through the bond. She smiled at him happily and nuzzled against him thankfully like she were a first frame youngling again. It was nice to see her creators for the first time in… she paused, realizing she hadn't actually seen or spoken to them, or anyone other than Sharpshot in metacycles.

"I will speak to him next orn after my lessons," she replied, pulling away slightly to touch her silver chevron to his green. It was a gesture that was used to increase bonds between Praxians, real ones or just the bond of being of the same frame, and often used as a greeting between them.

She went into recharge, mentally preparing for what she would say to Sharpshot to explain why _she personally_ felt like it was the best course of action.

Little did she know that they would be having a visitor the next orn during their last lesson of the day, nor did Sharpshot, if his reaction to the invasion of his 'territory' was anything to go by.

"L-Lord Megatron! Prime!" he stuttered, standing almost defensively in front of the class, and Starshine could understand why. If there was a threat to the Academy, he was the only one between them and whatever it was. "To what do we owe the honor?"

"We apologize for the inconvenience, there were meetings in Kaon that we had to attend to, but they were completed earlier than expected. We asked if it were possible to visit the Academy and take a look a at some of the lessons. We did not know that you had not been informed," Optimus Prime, _Optimus Prime,_ said appeasingly.

"I'm afraid that I had not been informed. I would have prepared my students for your arrival, but since I was not alerted, they all seem to be in a state of shock," Sharpshot replied a little accusingly.

It was true, as Starshine looked around, that all the other younglings were sitting ramrod straight in their seats as they kept their optics on their leaders. She flicked her antennae slightly before paying attention once more on her instructor as he informed that the ruling brothers could observe from the back of the room and warning them quite thoroughly that he could and would kick them out if they proved to be too distracting for the younglings. She twitched her sensory wings this time in slight panic as she realized that they would be right behind her.

Still, with the leaders no longer in their direct line of sight, and with the threat of their instructor's wrath if they didn't direct their attention back to the lesson, the atmosphere returned to normal, at least in front of her. She could feel the inquisitiveness in the Prime's EM field, he was so near, but that was really just because of her sensory wings' sensitivity that she could sense it. It was slightly distracting, but just as she used to do with her lessons, she put studying the field on the background in her processor.

"It appears that I've finished the lesson early this orn, but we have some time left. I suppose… in honor of our leaders gracing us with their presence, you could ask them a few questions about what their functions are, if that is alright with you," Sharpshot finally vented. Starshine knew that the lesson could have been over ages ago, but he had been dragging it out in hope that it would reach the end of the allotted time.

"Not at all," Lord Megatron replied. "Although, to be fair, one question each, and we get to ask you your designation and a question in turn."

She turned with the rest of the class to give them her full attention, wondering why they hadn't gone to the front of the room like one would expect.

"Do you go to lots of meetings?" Crystal, a pale blue femme with pale blue optics, asked first, not bothering to wait to be called on. Starlight was fairly sure she had said that she wanted to be a reported when she reached her adult frame.

"Yes, we do, what's your designation, little one?" Megatron asked warmly in turn.

"Crystal," she replied proudly, jutting out her jaw strut a little.

"What do you wish to be when you are an adult?"

"A reporter like my femme creator," she answered, all but glowing with the attention she was getting.

He nodded and turned his blue gaze to the rest of the younglings, indicating that Crystal had used up her time to speak. The femmling huffed slightly at that, but obediently sank back in her seat.

There were only seven younglings, including Starshine, in that class, so they all had plenty of time to get through everyone, if her internal chronometer was correct, and it was.

After Crystal, Talon asked, "Was your meeting about the increase of strikes and botnappings occurring in our city state?"

"We cannot tell you because it involved sensitive information not fit for young audios," the Prime evaded skillfully. "What is your designation?"

"Talon."

"Alright, Talon, what did you take away from your lesson today?"

"That the Great War nearly destroyed everyone, but we rebuilt to be better than ever before. Corruption took over the noble class because of such differences and inflation, but with your leadership, the rift between not only the classes but the city-states has been closing steadily," Talon replied eagerly. Starshine shot him a surprised look. She hadn't realized that he had been one to pay such close attention to the lecture about their history.

"Very good, but it is more listening to others' suggestions and input that has been healing the rift, not our own, independent actions," the Lord Protector said modestly.

"My designation is Metalhook, and I want to ask if you've ever been in battle," the olive green youngling spoke up scarcely before Lord Megatron had stopped speaking.

"Before I was the Lord Protector, I was a gladiator and fought for my life many times in the pits. It is one of our main reasons for shutting them down, to save the sparks of those kept there against their will. Now… my question for you is… what do you do for fun in Kaon? It is much different than when I lived here."

Metalhook thought about that for a moment before shrugging, "I just play with the other younglings in my apartment complex and a few from here at Academy."

"Not much has changed in that aspect, then, I suppose."

Longshot, a shy mechling of gunmetal grey, who looked like he would fit in more in the pits than in the classroom, spoke up quietly. Saying as that was where he had come from, it wasn't much of a surprise. The poor mechling was just too softsparked to hurt someone on purpose. He actually was one of the few that talked to Starshine, though he was very shy.

"Sir… what was it like for _you_ in the pits?" he asked, red optics lowered nervously.

"It was a living pit," the mech replied honestly, walking over to the mechling and resting an understanding servo on his shoulderguard. "But they made me stronger, the mech that I am today, and they are not something you should be ashamed of. Be proud that you survived when others have not."

Longshot nodded, smiling slightly as Megatron walked back to stand by his brother. "You still need to ask me a question…"

"What is your favorite part of Academy-?"

"Reading."

Both mechs chuckled at his quick response, and she sent a small smile back at him when he looked at her for reassurance, a habit that he had gotten into for some reason.

"Alright, then. Just three left, I do believe," the Prime said, regaining his composure. Melody, a light blue femmling, raised her servo high in the air at the same time Beatbox, a dark blue mechling, did.

"Femmes first," Megatron smirked, sensing the obvious rivalry between the two.

"What do you two have planned for the decavornly Arts and Music Celebration in a few metacycles?" Melody asked, shooting Beatbox a superior look.

"And where will it be taking place?" Beatbox added before the femmling could get too smug.

"Actually, it will be taking place in Praxus, the Capital of Art, and we cannot give you details if we value our anatomy remaining its proper placement," the Prime replied eagerly. "Will any of you be going?"

There were sad, dejected looks all around. "No. Kaon has a celebration of their own during the celebration, and we're all stuck at home while they go out to formal balls," Beatbox answered.

"What are your designations?" Megatron prompted the two.

"He's Beatbox, I'm Melody," Melody answered.

"Well, then, Melody. How would you like it if we were able to send your class, you seven and your instructor, to the celebration?"

Even Starshine perked up at that prospect, having been wanted to go to the celebration since she was a sparkling, the bright lights and dancing entertaining her more than her stars. She jerked her attention back to the leaders as she realized that it would be her turn to ask a question next, and she hadn't even thought of one!

"Alright, last question."

She blurted the first thing that came to the forefront of her processor and regretted it as soon as it was said, "Isn't it a tactical disadvantage for you both to go to a potentially hostile city-state for a meeting and then lounge around an Academy without any guards? Wouldn't it be more logical to send one of you and share the information via your bond or over a data pack? I-I mean, because of the recent strikes and all…"

The Prime and Protectorate shot each other amused looks as the airwaves buzzed with the tell tale sound of a short range internal comm. that only she could currently 'hear'.

"We are not here without guards, we believed that they might be intimidating to you young ones, so they are waiting outside the room. That was very observant of you to notice, but that was technically two questions, so do you see it as fair if we, in turn, ask you two questions?"

She nodded nervously, flaring her sensory field to reach outside the room and picking up three spark signatures there.

"Did you say your designation?" Sharpshot interrupted quietly.

"Oh, no, sir. I apologize, my designation is Starshine."

"Why that question?"

She blinked, looking at the Lord Protector. "I was listening to their questions and realized that I did not have one of my own. It was the first thing to form in my processor," she answered truthfully. She didn't see it, but Sharpshot gave a little proud smirk at that.

"Alright. What is your analysis of the potential risk of us both being here with and without our guards?"

"H-here as in the Academy, or here as in Kaon?"

"Can you do both?"

"Yes. In Kaon in general, with both of you here without any guards, there is a 62.51% chance that an assassination attempt would take place, here in Academy the percentage drops to 31.89%, based on studies on both stable and unstable adult Cybertronians' views on being violent or subjecting younglings to violence, though in an attack there is a 15.83% chance of a youngling being used as a hostage. With your guards, the city poses a 38.9...7% chance of an attack of some kind, while the chances inside the Academy raises to 45.34% because there is less chance that they would be able to get around panicked younglings to protect both of you in time, or there is a 12.76% chance that a youngling could be used as a hostage to ensure your cooperation," she answered.

The door hissed open and three mechs stepped inside, the same three that had been guarding the room while the leaders were there.

Everyone's optics were drawn to the doorwinged mech that was in the center of the trio, helm tilted to the side as he considered Starshine.

"Am I correct in saying you have an advance battle computer, logical computer, and tactical computer for one your age?" he asked emotionlessly, doorwings held in as stiff and neutral position as his faceplates.

"Y-you're Enforcer Prowl," she blurted instead of answering. "I, uh, yes… my processor was actually designed after yours… my creators actually _did_ design yours…"

"Lockgear and Brightshine are your creators, little one? I had not realized that they had taken up residence in Kaon," he asked. "If it is alright with Sharpshot and Lord Megatron and the Prime, would you care to speak to me when you are released from class?"

She looked at Sharpshot, who was glaring at the Praxian and clenching his servoes to keep from doing something rash. "I'm sorry, I cannot talk to you for very long if I do get permission. I have extra classes and do not want to be late for them."

Metalhook, being the arrogant youngling that he was, decided to ask a very personal question of the older Praxian. "Is it true that Praxians will terminate you if you take off their doorwings, like sparkless monsters?"

"Metalhook! That was uncalled for!" Sharpshot reprimanded, but Enforcer Prowl didn't react, watching the youngling impassively.

"Yes and no. In cases of the Praxian in question, in extreme shows of self control, you will just be beaten and ripped apart until you are no longer deemed a threat, but you'll survive. Unlike the rumors say, we do not act out of spark coding but rather purely logic that the one that hurt us is a threat to our safety and the best course of action is to dispose of all threats."

"Is it true that the Quintessons tried to enslave your kind?"

Again, there was no reaction, and it was starting to make Starshine nervous. Praxians were not supposed to be that still.

"The Quintessons were before my time, but yes, they tried to enslave not only my kind, but every Cybertronian."

"If her processors were based after yours, does that mean that she has your glitch?"

Everyone stared at Crystal. That wasn't something you just said to _anyone._

"My situation is unique in the fact that the processor advanced faster than I did, and in attempt to balance itself, it created a glitch between my emotional centers and my logic centers. I do not, however, glitch over every little bit of illogical happenings. Just emotional extremes, which are often enough to make _any_ bot glitch."

She nodded absently to that, understanding the theory of it. She had never suffered an emotional extreme before, so it was unsure if the glitch had indeed been a flaw in the design or if it was an isolated event.

"If that is all the questions you have, you are all dismissed. I'm sure you are all excited to tell your creators that you met the Lord Protectorate and the Prime. Go, get!" he ordered. Starshine waited until the others were gone before turning her full attention back to Enforcer Prowl, flaring her sensory wings slightly to maintain a small bit of her processor's attention on the two mech behind her, as well as focussing the data her antennae were picking up on the two unknown mechs next to Enforcer Prowl. She could still see Sharpshot, right behind the enforcer, and he still had that same unreadable look on his faceplates.

"What did you wish to speak to me about?" she asked evenly.

She blinked her optics in surprise at the request for the private comm. that prodded her processor, the comms. a system that adults didn't normally indulge younglings with because they tended to forget to turn it off while they were thinking and let it flow unhindered across it. Hesitantly, she accepted it, trying to balance half her processor on maintaining her observation of all the mechs in the room, a scenario analysis for how this could all play out, and keeping her thoughts from invading the comm.

::Your instructor is expressing concern for our conversation.::

She nodded at that instead of answering, growing frustrated with how difficult it was to maintain her attention on all of them at once and still converse.

::Why are you taking so many classes?::

She lowered her antennae reluctantly so she could answer. ::Because the career I am pursuing is not one that femmes are welcomed in and I am determined to give myself the best chance possible to overcome the bias.::

The enforcer nodded slightly. ::What do you wish to do?::

She paused, barely keeping herself from transmitting that he would find the idea stupid and sparklingish before she answered honestly. ::I wish to be an enforcer.::

He didn't change his expression. ::That is what your processor is designed best for in a non war setting. My processor was originally designed in the war and it was enough to nearly drive me insane before I began training to be an enforc-::

::Sir… I _do_ know the parameters of my own processor. You do not need to explain hard coded preferences to me.:: she interrupted before he could continue. She had learned very well that if she didn't have at least seven things to occupy her processor in the background in a normal setting, she was not pleasant company to be in at all. It was just so difficult to be so when it was like you weren't acting to the best of one's ability, not utilizing codes that were meant to up and running for orns at a time in high stress situations. She dared not allow that to happen while amongst her peers. "I learned long ago that keeping my processor almost overly occupied for others' safety and personal comfort rather than my own."

Sharpshot looked at her in surprise, but Enforcer Prowl showed even more reaction to that, kneeling down so he was looking her directly in the optic. "I am sorry."

She blinked at him, processor straining to understand what he was apologizing for. "I don't understand."

"For assuming that you would not know the risks your unique processor has. I also apologize out of empathy for the troubles it has brought you socially."

She canted her helm to the side before shaking it and tucking her doorwings as she stood, preventing them from hitting the Lord Protectorate that had inched closer and closer to her back. Most Praxians four time her age with twice her experience would have been unbalanced by such an action, but it meant that she could move through the crowded halls of the Academy and the streets of Kaon without fear of them being struck or used against her. Her balance was not off whether they were extended fully or if they were all but gone against her dorsal plating.

"Sir, there is no need for you to apologize. I assume that you are often left to explain exactly what it is like to have such a processor configuration and to assume that even myself would have such knowledge could have possibly been a completely wrong assumption and potentially allow for a gap in knowledge to have remained, and that would be completely unacceptable. I appreciate your understanding of the social stresses as well, but I am very used to being on my own and prefer the quiet," she rebuked him slightly, but still maintaining her respectful tone.

"My Lord, Prime… Starshine _does_ have another lesson that she must get to. Her Circuit Su Master is not one to… tolerate tardiness."

She snorted at that, remembering the mech's exact words that he had told her when she first arrived to his class, "I do believe he stated that he did not care if I was in the Well of All Sparks, I was to be on time every time. Excuse me, sirs, but I do need to leave."

Enforcer Prowl tilted his helm back to look at their leaders, a private conversation obviously taking place. She had no way to get to the door with him being where he was, and it would be rude to, regardless.

"Would you allow us to observe your lesson?" the Prime asked curiously. She looked at Sharpshot nervously, not knowing what the right answer would be. She had private lessons for a reason, she did not enjoy being the center of attention, and it was the same for her dance and music lessons. She thought of them as something private and a time to reassert her self control as she went through the motions. "You are very young to be practising such a refined martial art, and if you are to be an enforcer one orn, then we would like to observe what the next generation can bring to our forces."

She casted another glance at her primary instructor, still unsure.

"Quickdraw says that it will not bother him so long as they are not a distraction," he assured her quietly. She belatedly realized that she had not been paying as much attention to the comm. as she had wished she had been, but she had yet to accidentally transmit anything.

She nodded and subspaced her things, skillfully weaving her way around the mechs as Enforcer Prowl stood once more. She frowned as her tactical pointed out the disadvantage her size had. Third frame youngling she may be, she was still tiny compared to them, especially the Lord Protector.

That thought _was_ accidentally transmitted and one of the mechs, a silver minibot with a blue visor covering his optics, snorted in amusement. She narrowed her optics at him and then abruptly cut the comm. link as she recognized who he was. The supposedly tamed assassin from Iacon that went by the designation of Jazz, though there were doubts that it was truly his designation.

Still, she didn't want to accidently say or transmit anything rude. His stealth and hacking skills were unparallelled, as well as his ability to melt into his surroundings and seem like any other mech in a crowd. Starshine had a lot of respect for him, and she wondered if her musing had offended him. To allay her own fears more so than anything, she said, "I did not realize that Enforcer Prowl was transmitting the comm. feed to you, and I had no intention of transmitting that. I did not mean any offense to you, sir."

Enforcer Prowl turned his helm to glare neutrally at Jazz, as though waiting for an explanation. "Uh, well, Prowler didn' share it wit' meh, and I ain't got no righ' ta listen in. My apologies, youn' one. Force of habit."

She physically bit her glossa before she could respond sarcastically or rudely. So she simply nodded and then continued out of the room, knowing that if she delayed any longer, there was a risk that she would be late. If the adults couldn't keep up, well, they should be able to navigate without her.

Rather than punch in the code that would open the doors to the on sight training dojo, she knocked respectfully, two breems to spare. It was the closest she had ever been to being late, but she refused to allow it to become a habit. The door opened, granting her entry, but she still did not enter, waiting for her Circuit Su Master to invite her inside as tradition dictated.

"Enter, Starshine."

She bowed and crossed the threshold, settling into a respectful kneel before the mats. Quickdraw looked at her and frowned. She waited silently for him to ask what was troubling him.

"Starshine, I was under the impression that the Prime, Lord Protectorate, and their escort would be accompanying you here." Starshine nodded, still not having permission to speak. "Explain."

"The first orn, when I asked to be your student, you made it very clear that tardiness was not tolerated, Master Quickdraw. I did not wish to disappoint you, and I am confident in their abilities to circumnavigate their way here without any troubles or need for assistance… Was I wrong to-"

"No, Starshine, you were correct in your actions. I am simply annoyed that they continuously are pinging me with requests for your location," Quickdraw vented in annoyance. Then he smirked at her almost smugly. "You are getting better at moving in silence, enough that they lost track of you after the fourth misdirecting hall you took. You were not as earlier as you usually are."

She had not even considered the route that she had taken could be taken as misdirection. She simply knew that they were the least crowded halls at this time of orn and knew that it was the quickest route.

Still, she nodded and bowed her helm, waiting for instruction when the door opened without any preamble and the nervous ramblings of a familiar mechling met her audios. It was all that she could do to remain in her kneeling position and not let her engine growl at his brash actions. Quickdraw had been surprised by her formality the first orn when she had requested entry the same way she requested it every orn, specifically because the younglings of Kaon were not taught such formalities in dojos, the places of practice rarely overseen by true masters, but rather half trained glitches that thought they could cheat mechs out of their credits. Quickdraw was the only true Master in Kaon, but he did not advertise it, and never expected the respect that was due to him.

"You will do well to never cut your arrival so close to the beginning of the joor that you are meant to be here. I will not tolerate tardiness and for every breem you are late, you will remain for an extra ten at the end of the lesson. Am I understood, Talon?"

The femmling dared not turn her helm to look at her peer, and therefore missed the arrival of the Prime, Protectoratem and their escorts. She felt their EM fields flare in greeting, and Quickdraw snappily ordered them all inside his realm, if only he could close the door. Starshine only just kept her processor from analyzing the words her Master had just spoken to Talon, assuming that he would be joining her lessons. It was not surprising. Quickdraw had little time, and making an entirely new class, after Academy Joors were up, for only a single femmling was a great task and it was foolish of her to assume that it would remain just her.

"Starshine, begin your warm-up on the far side. Talon, watch her, silently, from right there, while I have a… discussion, with our esteemed leaders."

She did as she had been ordered, ignoring the fact that she was being watched because if she took notice, it would distract her, and distraction would lead to mistakes. She did not want to make mistakes when her every move was being examined and analyzed.

Starshine still couldn't help but to move her sensory wings in time with her movements. When she ducked, they ducked, when she blocked, they flared defensively. There was no way for her not to keep them moving with her without disrupting the flow of her frame. A stiff frame meant a slow frame, and it meant jerky stops if she ever had to stop suddenly.

"Starshine, cease and come here," Quickdraw ordered, sounding unhappy.

She froze, then eased out of her stance, "Yes, Master Quickdraw."

She ignored Talon's awed look and made her way to stand in front of her Master, also paying no direct attention to their guests, though she was very curious as to why they all seemed to have a smug air about them. She said nothing as Quickdraw looked her over and then vented.

"Enforcer Prowl has a request for you," he finally informed her. She almost let herself twitch a doorwing in annoyance that he was continuing to interrupt her lesson, but it was not her place to do so. The mech was also a Master of Circuit Su, not to mention almost every other martial art there was to offer on Cybertron, and she would hear what he had to say.

Starshine gave a short bow to Quickdraw before turning her full attention to the Enforcer, a quick look over of his frame language confirming that he was, in fact, smug. Like he had just won an argument. She looked at him expectantly, saying nothing for fear that it would be seen as rude.

"I noticed that you appear to have trouble keeping your doorwings steady as you go through your form. While it does not affect your skills at this point in your training, it will drain your energy faster in higher forms because it is unnecessary movement."

Her sensory wings dipped a bit at the gentle rebuke, having not considered the full long term affects of allowing such a thing to occur. She frowned softly, young processor whirring quietly as she allowed her tactical computers to process the authenticity of his claim and then wilted even more as she found that he was correct. Quickdraw, who had no experience with training a Praxian, would have had no way to correct her, or it would have been too late, and she was grateful for the intervention.

"Thank you, sir. I had not realized," she finally managed quietly, barely able to be heard over the sound of everyone's systems running quietly.

"Would you allow me to teach you the correct way to go through your form without moving them?"

She looked hesitantly at Quickdraw, who nodded at her in reluctant encouragement. "It is your choice."

Still she hesitated, but eventually she nodded in assent and followed the older Praxian back onto the mats and watched as he smoothly went through the form without so much as a twitch of his doorwings that were flared for optimal sensory feed. She tilted her helm to the side slightly, analyzing how he moved and how it was drastically different from the way Quickdraw had taught her. Her processor was fast to explain why, as well. The way that Enforcer Prowl moved was that of a Praxian that was well versed in teaching other Praxians the forms, but also such a way that it would work just as well for a wingless bot. It clicked more in her processor, like they were seamless steps in a dance as opposed to singular forms squished together.

She hadn't even realized that her faceplates had taken an expression of awe, nor that her sensory wings had begun to relax and flick in time with his movements in her excitement. It just looked right, the way that he went through the forms. Starshine also didn't see both Quickdraw's and Talon's expression of fear as they all watched the deadly predator before them, living up to his designation of Prowl.

Completely forgetting about etiquette and manners, as soon as he completed the form and eased out of his stance, she let her doorwings almost flap from her astonishment as she began to ramble about how amazing that had been. She froze in embarrassment as her processor finally caught up with her vocalizer and she cut herself of with a hiss of static.

For his part, though, he only gave her an amused expression with his doorwings and ordered her to go into the first stance so he could correct it. She happily complied, her entire focus on the other Praxian, rather than the reactions of the other mechs, nor their conversation.

"I ain't never seen her so excited," Talon whispered as the lesson ended and neither Praxians paid it any mind.

"Praxians tend to be rather reserved when not with their own kind," Quickdraw replied just as quietly, his arms crossed over his chassis as he watched his student relearn what had taken him decaorns to teach and then watched as she passed it with astonishing efficiency. While she was by no means a slow learner, it was different this orn. She was basically absorbing the data, and she moved with the skill of a natural dancer that Moonglint, her instructor in that class, boasted so proudly of.

"Tha's kinda scary, watchin' 'em like tha'. Can' 'magine how deadly she'll be when she becomes a 'Forcer," Jazz said to Ironhide, who nodded slowly in agreeance.

"Indeed, she has the skills to do so, but I do not believe that Prowl will be satisfied to leave her training with her instructors, now that he has determined that. I ain't got no tactical computers myself, but I bet ya that he's gonna say that the highest probability of her becoming an enforcer would be under his tutelage."

"Nah, mech, I ain't takin' a bet I can' win," Jazz snorted. "She knew who I was, ta. Real polite, tha' femme."

"Caretakers rarely allow their femme creations to begin their apprentiships before they are in their adult frames," Optimus butted in, cocking an optic ridge at them. "And Prowl can very easily hear you right now."

"Not to mention the femmling," Megatron added crossly. He had been the most resistant to adding femmes to the military ranks, not because he didn't think that they would be able to handle it but rather because they would be made into large targets because others would assume that they would be too weak to actually fight properly. This little femmling was proving that to be quite wrong and she was only at the forth form.

"Neither of them are paying attention to us at the moment," Quickdraw growled.

Talon looked at the mechs, and then back down at the femme that had been showing him up, even if it seemed more accidental than intentional, since the day that she had stepped a pede into his life, and he had always hated her for it. She was different, she was bullied, and she was still so slagging nice about, too! She always would work hard and would deny any praise that she got from their instructors. Then she had decided that she wanted to be a slagging Enforcer! That wasn't fair, she was going to get herself terminated and then he would feel guilty for all the bad things that he had done to her and he didn't want that.

"Quickdraw, you said that she wants to be an enforcer, right?" he asked.

"Yes, Talon."

He frowned and made his decision. "Then I want to be an enforcer, too."

The mechs all gave him amused and almost knowing looks. "Why is that?"

"Because we're always so mean to her and she's always so nice, and if she can do _that_ , then there's no way she's not gonna be an enforcer, and if she terminates, I'm gonna feel bad for being mean to her," he answered stubbornly.

There was a snort and they watched as Starshine and Prowl bowed respectfully to each other before Prowl dismissed her from the mats as if he were her Master and not Quickdraw. She bounced by his side, chatting cheerfully at a fast pace that Talon was the only one that seemed to understand.

"You did very well, Starshine," the elder Praxian praised, and instead of pushing it away, she practically preened at his words, a happy purr coming from her engines as he lightly ran a digit over her chevron. "You have taught her very well, Quickdraw."

The big, burly mech nodded stiffly, narrowing his optics at the unspoken 'but' at the end of his statement. "Starshine, Talon, you are both dismissed. Starshine, do you have an escort home? It is nearly half a joor past curfew."

She started at that, worriedly looking at the darkness from the window. The curfew for younglings was in place for a reason, that was when the sparkling and youngling nappers came out to capture stray young sparks and sell them into the Rings. Not even adult bots would travel through the streets of Kaon if they didn't have to. It was just too dangerous and even adult bots could be sold into the Rings.

"N-no, sir… I had not realized that it was so late," she replied, her voice thin from the fear that she was trying to conceal. She frowned but shook her small helm, walking out of the dojo without even asking for an escort home. Talon looked at the other mechs and chased after her, knowing that it was just as dangerous for him to walk back to his apartment complex alone right now, and that there was strength in numbers. There was less of a chance that they would be attacked if they were together, simply because it offered the chance for one to alert the authorities, and despite its reputation, Kaon Enforcers had no tolerance to the bot traffickers and would use lethal force if necessary to protect the citizens from them.

"Starshine, wait up! Where is your apartment complex?"

She transmitted the location and he pulled up short. "I live there, too. How have I never seen you there?"

"How long have you-"

"Oh, only a few decaorns, our last complex was shut down because of a smelting pit found under the foundation."

"I normally leave for Academy when curfew is lifted and arrive as it sets," she replied. She and the mechling hesitated at the Academy doors to stare at the completely dark streets. Their race had no need to have any more light than the stars to be able to navigate over their planet, but it was still a disadvantage.

The two youngling's hesitation was enough for the worried adults to catch up with them and ponder exactly how they could have gotten there so quickly when they were so small.

"Stop!" Ironhide snapped, making the two jump and spin to face them.

"Sirs?"

"It's our fault that you are out past curfew and it is too dangerous for you to be in the streets on your own. Allow us to escort you both home," the Prime ordered gently. The two younglings blinked at him as though he had spoken in some forgotten language.

Then Starshine's sensory wings flared as she calculated the risk that it would pose to them. "Sir, there is a-"

"Enough, young one. Please," the Prime cut her off, having reached the two and crouched down to their height.

"But if we were attacked, you would-" Talon began, looking nervous as well.

"Let us worry about that, not you," Megatron cut him off sharply. Both of them shared an uneasy look, their rivalry momentarily forgotten as they nodded in tandem. They waited as Ironhide stepped out onto the street first before following, nervously watching the shadows.

Starshine kept her sensory wings on high and jumped at virtually every noise coming from the alleys as they travelled, until the older Praxian sighed and scooped both Talon and herself in his arms and carried them, allowing them to move at a much faster pace.

Now, third framed younglings were only slightly shorter than a standard minibot, if they themselves were not minibots, and they both were half the Enforcer's height, so to be carried by him were more than a little embarrassing, but it was even more so after they struggled to be put down and were handed off to Megatron, who was four times Talon's size and five times Starshine's.

Despite their initial protests, they soon settled and allowed the indignity in favor of making faster time. They were surprised to find both of their creators at the entrance of the apartment complex, worrying the steps as they paced.

"Enforcers?" Brightshine whispered as they saw Prowl, who had taken lead. Then they gaped as Megatron allowed the younglings to climb down from his large frame and rush over to their worried caretakers, who enveloped them quickly, ensuring that they hadn't been harmed by the ones that had returned them to their homes.

Starshine braced herself for her mech creator to explode at her for missing curfew. "Starshine, you know better than to stay after curfew. You _know_ that the botnapping rates have been increasing and that you are meant to leave Academy with plenty of time to get home! You promised us that you wouldn't be late! I have half the mind to pull you out of Academy and get you an apprenticeship with a dancer! I cannot believe you would be so irresponsible, femmling!" he berated, not raising his voice, but filling the bond with all his worry, fear, and disappointment with her, though he also made sure to send over his love, affection, and relief.

"Do not blame the younglings," the Prime spoke, drawing attention to himself. They four adults that were holding their younglings stared at him in shock.

"P-prime!" Talon's mech creator murmured, a soldier that was currently on leave for the next metacycle.

The noble mech nodded his head respectfully to him while the Praxian couple and Talon's femme creator continued to stare in awe. "We visited their second to last lesson, earlier this orn, and asked if we could observe them in their Circuit Su lesson. It was one of my mechs' fault that it ran late and we apologize for that. We know of the rising outbreak in botnappings and we did not want them to walk home with by themselves."

Talon's femme creator bristled. "Talon! You almost walked home by _yourself?_ Are you _glitched?_ Do you have any idea how stupid that decision was?"

"I wasn't going to walk home alone! I was going to walk with _Starshine!_ " he protested defensively.

"Femmes are twice the target that you are! You are-"

"Ma'am, neither of them wanted to leave the Academy to walk home. Like I said before, it was our fault that the younglings broke curfew-"

"And _you! You are the Prime, you should not be out in the streets at a time like this! Get inside, now, all of you!"_ Brightshine hissed in tandem with the other femme, both in full caretaker mode. If they weren't obeyed, helms were going to go rolling.

"Ma'am-"

" _Did we stutter, Lord Protector Megatron?"_

In no time at all, all five mechs were inside of Starshine's bright apartment, hesitantly drinking the energon served to them by the now calmer Brightshine and, as Starshine had found out her designation was, Razor.

"Starshine, Talon, how was Academy?" Talon's mech creator, designated Blade, asked them from where he was standing next to Lockgear.

Talon whirred quietly next to Starshine as she looked at him in clear offering for him to go first. "I have never had a more eventful orn," he answered carefully. "It's not every orn that the leaders of the planet just interrupt your history lesson."

Starshine hesitantly agreed, then rapidly blurted, "I learned a lot more from Enforcer Prowl in my Circuit Su lesson than I have from Quickdraw… I do not believe that I thanked you for correcting my form and teaching me this orn, sir."

Prowl almost glared at her as the femmes heard what she said and began asking all sorts of defensive questions. For having only met a few joors ago, the two adult femmes had clicked very well and were determined to keep the other's creation safe.

"There is certainly no need to thank me, Starshine. You have a great amount of potential in you and I simply wish to utilize that potential into honed skills that you can use to better Cybertron one orn."

Starshine frowned as both Ironhide and Jazz smirked at each other behind the Enforcer's back, and then looked at Talon, who shrugged at her.

"Don't look at me. They're from Iacon and Pax. They're weird."

She giggled at the offended looks the two mechs gave him at his assessment of them. "Talon, I'm sure that they think that you're weird, too."

"Starshine, don't be rude," Brightshine chastised as she brought two cubes of energon over to them, which they happily took.

"Sorry, femme creator," she replied meekly, but her smile didn't drop from her faceplates.

"So Prowler, wha' ya mean by ya 'wish' instea' o' 'wished', huh, mech?" Jazz asked slyly. The room froze as Starshine's creators looked at the other Praxian expectantly and defensively.

"Yes, sir. What _did_ you mean?" Lockgear growled. Ironhide growled right back at him, ready to intervene if it got physical. The bodyguard knew how protective creators could get over their creations, especially from a creation as rare as a femme.

Prowl glared at Jazz for a moment before drawing himself up fully. "I observed both of your younglings during their lesson. They both have a very fine attention to detail and a ready obedience to orders that they are given. Both also show great promise in any career they would wish to pursue and their records show that they are the top two younglings in their Academy. Not even just their grade level, the entire Academy. They also expressed their concerns for our leaders before their own when we informed them that we would be escorting them home. Because of that, and because they are proving to be some of the best bots their generation has to offer, I would like to take them both back to Iacon with us to begin an apprenticeship under myself and my partner, Enforcer Jazz, to become Enforcers."

Everyone stared at him, then Talon and Starshine glared at the other competitively. "Who's ahead?" they asked as one.

Prowl looked at them in surprise. "Pardon?"

"Who's at the top of the Academy. Starshine or myself?" Talon clarified.

"Starshine in some and yourself in others. You are tied in the average ranking for first," he replied.

Starshine grinned at Talon, glad that neither was above the other and therefore had no risk of looking like she was trying to look superior to him. He gave her a hesitant smile back, but they turned their attention back to their creators.

"What? You want to take my litte star to-"

"Lockgear! Excuse us one moment," Brightshine growled, dragging her mate into their berthroom and then proceeding to give him a dressing down that was bad enough that even Megatron winced in sympathy.

The sheepish looking mech was dragged back into the room and looked at his pedes. "My apologies, Enforcer Prowl. I _know_ that you could not do anything to harm my creation and that you would not make this off out of mal intent. If she agrees to it, then you have our blessing to be her mentor," he said before returning to his berthroom and closing the door sharply to continue getting reamed out by his mate. Razor shot her mate a look that dared him to try something similar.

"You have our blessing as well, but it is Talon's choice."

"I'll go if she goes," Talon finally declared, not wanting to go on his own.

"I would be honored to be your apprentice," Starshine agreed after weighing the pros and cons.

"We can make it official when we arrive in Iacon next orn," he declared, nodding to the two's creators in thanks for their permission.

Then the adults all seemed to realize that it was past curfew and they had no way to leave the city before it was lifted. The good news was that Lockgear and Brightshine, being the owners of the complex, had plenty of spare berthrooms in their suite.

That didn't make it any less awkward as Talon was ordered to stay in _Starshine's_ berthroom with her so there wouldn't be any hassle first shift when they departed. She opened the door, carrying a spare blanket and pillow with her, and allowed him into her room, waiting for him to comment. She winced at the datapads strewn about her desk, the calculation written on the glass divider designed for exactly that purpose. Her berth was made, at least, the sheer number of pillows on it making her frame heat in embarrassment.

"It's so… neat," he said. She stared at him in shock as she began stacking the datapads in their proper places and erasing the glass. "Like… do you _do_ anything in here other than study? There's no toys, no games! There's nothing personal!"

She made a noise of denial and crouched to pull out a cubby of sorts filled to the brim with boardgames, gamechips, and a single plush toy; a large cyberhound that she called Static.

He stared at her. "Wow… makes one wonder how you find anything in here."

She blinked as she realized that Talon was _teasing_ her. She let her faceplates twitch into a smile at that. "It bothers me if stuff is out of place. It's inefficient."

The devilish smirk on his faceplates was enough to end her own as he went over her datapads and tediously rearranged the order she had put them in, and then tilted them onto their sides. She rushed over and fixed them, shooting him a glare as she then dumped over half her pillows onto the ground and made of nest of sorts that she pointed him to. "There. Slagger."

His optics widened at her profanity before he snickered and listened to her, curling up in the nest while she hopped up onto her berth and snuggled down into it, drifting into recharge easily.

She was snapped awake early next orn by… Enforcer Prowl?" Her processor took a moment to process her situation and she sluggishly yawned as it rebooted fully. When it did, her optics widened and she gave an embarrassed squeak. Of course Prowl had woken both her, and Talon by the looks of it. He was their mentor. They were his responsibility.

Talon was clearly not a first shift kind of mech, if his grumbling was anything to go by. She didn't blame him, though. Curfew still had a joor before it was lifted. Even she was never up this early.

"Sir?"

"You both need to pack your belongings," he explained, looking around the sparse room. "Berthrooms will be provided for you, as well as all necessities. If there is any… memorabilia that you wish to take with you, grab it now."

Starshine immediately grabbed Static and pulled him into her subspace, ignoring the amused angle of the older Praxian's doorwings. Talon snorted and shook his helm. "I don't have anything that I want to bring with me," he reported.

They were shuffled out, their femme creators dragging them both into the washracks and scrubbed the protesting younglings clean.

"Starshine, how long has it been since you actually polished yourself?" Brightshine scolded, holding her youngling still as she made Starshine's normally dull plating shine like her namesake. She almost seemed to glow in the artificial lighting.

As was custom when getting an apprenticeship, their creators also gifted them with their first alt modes. In an ideal world, they would have at least an orn to get used to using them, but time was of the essence. That did not mean that the two younglings weren't scared of using their alt forms and messing up, especially in front of their race's leaders.

Transforming was a natural function for all Cybertronians, but the first time was always the hardest. They all had the programming already there in their processors, it was just the mental trepidation the made it so awkward.

"Ya bot' jus' need ta relax. Easier than cyclin' air," Jazz assured, snickering as Prowl tried to talk them through their fears.

"Yeah, cycling air in the smelter," Talon scoffed even as he managed transforming for the first time. His alt mode suited his frame perfectly, large and sturdy, but designed in a way that didn't hinder his speed. It made sense because his femme creator was a racer.

She folded into her own alt mode, feeling the sleek curves and daring angles. Sometimes having frame engineers as creators had its perks. This was an advanced model that she had seen them designing and they had told her that it was for a special client whose creation was coming of age soon. She hadn't realized that they were their own clients.

Talon's engine stalled and choked as she tested her acceleration out and shot past him. She slammed on her brakes, not used to such speed. The adults folded into their own alt modes, Jazz's being the only one that showed any promise of keeping up with her if she went at full speed.

"Wanna race?" he purred. She sent an inquiring ping to Prowl, asking for his permission and getting it.

She revved her engine in affirmation and grinned mentally as he sent her the coordinates for the end of their 'race'.

She took off, not even trying to pass him as she easily kept pace next to him. He wasn't going full throttle, either, and she didn't feel like wasting the energy. Not when this particular race would rely more on stamina than speed. The mech kept trying to goad her to go faster, but she ignored his attempts, actually slowing slightly to let him shoot in front of her. At the last half mile, she gunned it, zipping past him and then he was gone from even her sensors as she circled the location, marking her win. Her engines stalled as she realized that she was completely alone, at least until Jazz caught up with her. She had never been outside of Kaon, and she belatedly realized that the former assassin would have picked up on her unease and attempted to quell that.

She shook on her axles, fear shooting through her frame even as she tried to calm herself down. In no time at all, Jazz was at her side, but it was still too long. She huddled as close as she possibly could to the adult and only felt partially childish for doing so. How could she have been on the cusp of asking to be upgraded when she should still be in her second youngling frame in all technicalities, or only just upgrading to her third frame.

"Hey, it's a'igh', lil' one," the mech assured. "First time on yer own?"

"Never been outside of the city," she replied.

She could feel the surprise in his field. "Never been ta Praxus even?"

"No. My parents adore Kaon. The life of the city is… musical." She idly transmitted a copy of her sensory input to her doorwings on an average orn in Kaon. He sunk on his axles, absorbing the data with an appreciative hum.

"Tha's wha' it's like for ya all the time?"

She gave an amused chuckle. "If I had a credit every time I was asked that..."

The rest of their party arrived to the two of them chatting idly with each other, both at ease in the cold desert of the outlands that separated Kaon from the other city states.

"So she beat you?" Megatron asked. Though he was walking because his alt mode was that of a flyer, he didn't seem out of place.

"Pit yeah, she did! Didn' see it comin'! Lucky lil' runt," Jazz replied cheerfully.

She frowned internally at that. "I am not a runt," she protested.

"Jazz, do not antagonize my apprentice," Prowl ordered. She maneuvered her way so she was driving next to him rather than the minibot, Talon joining her other side. "Either of them."

"Yer no fun, Prowler. I was jus' referin' ta the fac' tha' she's young!"

"Age does not matter to our race."

"Yeah, but her spark maturity is that of second frame younglin', even if her processor's nearly an adults."

Prowl was silent for a long moment before he replied, "I, too, upgraded to my third youngling frame early, by ten vorns."

"Twenty vorns," she said softly when he sent her a questioning ping. "I upgraded twenty vorns early because my spark and processor started to reject my frame."

"You both will undergo a check up by the medic that I see when I need to," Prowl said after a moment. "There will be no charge for the check up, before you protest."

"What? Why wouldn't there be?" Talon asked suspiciously.

"Because he is doing it as a favor to me and to be introduced to you. I cannot allow him to meet you unless you agree to the check up, because he'd do so anyway."

"What kind of medic would give a bot a check up out of the goodness of his spark?" Starshine asked in pure confusion. The medics in Kaon were rarely actually trained medics, more often than not, they were trained in the pits and paid well by the gladiator masters to keep their fighters alive, regardless of the pain they were in. Her creators would call in a medic that they trusted from Praxus, and it was far from a cheap bill whenever he did come.

The five mech's engines stalled and she found herself braking as Ironhide transformed and sharply rounded on them, looking furious. She transformed as well, stumbling back in fear of whatever wrath she had accidentally incurred. The other bots followed suit and Talon pushed her behind him defensively, engine growling in warning at him.

"Ironhide, stand down, you're scaring them!" the Prime ordered, flaring his EM field in a soothing manner.

"What the slag did you mean by that, femme?" he growled, ignoring his leader. She backed up further, tucking her doorwings and flattening her armor submissively. She flinched as Prowl pulled her over to him, EM field flaring as well with gentle reassurance.

"Th-the medics in Kaon only serve the Rings… you have to have a medic come from a different city if you want proper care and most bots can't afford the costs they have," she stuttered. "You learn not to trust a medic that offers you 'help' pretty quickly…"

The giant black mech advanced on the two younglings, looming over them to ensure he had their full attention. "Ratchet ain't like that and so long as yer Prowl's responsibility, you will never have to worry about that again. Ratchet won't let ya."

Both Talon and Starshine gaped at hearing the medic's name. "R-Ratchet t-the Hatchet?" they asked together, their fear increasing rather than abating.

"Isn't he the medic that strips bots of their parts if they don't listen to him?"

"I heard that he _eats_ them!" Starshine replied, optics wide. "And that he converts bad younglings into replacement parts!"

"Ratchet does not do any of those things!" the Lord Protectorate protested, though it sounded like he was trying to conceal his laughter. "He might throw a wrench at you, but he won't try to _eat_ you or anything of the likes!"

"My creators say that the Unmaker and the Creator are scared of him and won't take a bot if he's working on them!" Talon hissed, not appeased.

"Ooh, I dare ya ta tell old Hatchet tha'!" Jazz crowed, laughing loudly.

"Come, we must not take any more breaks if we want to reach Iacon before the first shift starts."

"The first shift hasn't started yet?" Talon asked in surprise.

"No. The first shift does not start for another two joors. Kaon operates much earlier and later than Iacon does," the Prime explained patiently. The rest of their journey was in silence.

Instead of pulling into a hospital, they stopped at a housing unit that Prowl confidently led the way into while the Prime and Protectorate declared they had business to attend to and left. Ironhide and Jazz served to push the nervous younglings further into the building, both having guessed that this is where the medic would be meeting them.

"Oh, for Primus' sake!" a grouchy voice growled when they eventually dragged them to the apartment, neither of the younger bots wanting to cross the threshold.

Starshine screeched in terror and tried to make an escape, but her scruffbar was grabbed like she were some insolent sparkling and she was hauled inside, pedes not even touching the metal floor as she twisted and turned in a futile attempt to get out of the devil medic's grip.

"Stop struggling, bratling, or I'll take off your doorwings!" he threatened, and she froze, tucking her doorwings protectively against her dorsal plating while she whimpered limply in his hold.

"Please don't eat me," she begged, clenching her optics shut.

There was a snort and she was set down on a regular berth and she looked at the medic for the first time. "Young spark, old programming," he huffed to her, as though she would understand what that meant.

"Pardon?"

"Your spark is not matured enough for your frame but your programming is old and forced the upgrade to ensure your processor did not suffer. Young spark, old programming. Haven't seen programming this old in a very long time. Your creators must have looked through the archives to find it-"

"My creators did not do anything to my programming. All my programming is as the All Spark made it when I was sparked," she cut him off.

"Brave little spark, aren't you?" he chuckled. "Let us hope that it is not an omen to come, for I have not seen such programming since the Great War."

She bit her glossa hard enough to draw energon to keep from rudely commenting on his age. "What does the programming entail?" she asked.

"I don't know. I was an apprentice during the war. Never was privy to such information."

"Oh… Why are you giving me a check up?" she asked next, refusing to comply as he gently tugged on her doorwings in askance for her to relax them.

"Because you are Prowl's apprentice and the slagging glitch would have hid you from me otherwise. Something about scaring you to termination?"

Well that wasn't too far off. The medic's berthside manner had something left to be desired. She hoped that he wasn't a frequent fixture around Iacon because she didn't know if her processor could handle it.

Instead of answering, she finally flared her doorwings slightly, then screeched again as he transformed a digit into a needle and made to poke her with it. She made a mad dash to the door, only to be gently caught and held tightly by Prowl, who had been expecting her reaction. She was held still as the medic rolled his optics and continued with his checkup.

Talon had much of the same treatment, but was forced to go through it with Ironhide holding him rather than Prowl because he had managed to overpower the Enforcer.

"Kaonians are so stubborn about seeing medics, I don't know why, either!" the medic snapped as he decided that they both were in decent health and informed them that they would be seeing him again in a few decaorns. Maybe then they wouldn't be so 'idiotically stubborn' as he put it.

"Sir… there are no _good_ medics in Kaon. They all are employed by the Gladiator Rings. You're more likely to be sold into the Rings than actually be fixed if you see a medic there," she explained as she stayed at the furthest point in the room from him.

Apparently distance didn't matter, because she whimpered as a wrench imbedded itself into the wall right above her helm, only having just dodged it.

"Give that back," the medic ordered and she rushed to comply, pulling it down and hesitantly handing it back to its owner, fearful of getting it thrown at her again. "Good, femmling. Now both of you get back to Prowl! Out of my apartment! Now!"

The two younglings fled from the chartreuse medic's wrath, huddling behind Prowl for protection when they were in the hallway.

"Thank you, sir," she called back politely before the door closed. There was a pause before the door opened and he popped his helm out.

"You're welcome, Starshine."

Then the door slammed shut once more and she stared in surprise at it.

"Come. While I may be your mentor now, and you my apprentices, we have yet to make it official, and you must both begin your training at the Enforcer Academy. You are both already registered and begin at the start of first shift. I will meet you at the doors when you are released," Prowl ordered, walking them into the unfamiliar streets and to the famous Enforcer Academy that only the richest or the most influential could send their creations to. It wasn't like the half rundown mockeries that were constructed in the other cities. It was a fortress of discipline and promise. It was the most intimidating thing that Starshine had ever set her optics on.

Her entire life thus far, she had always been compelled to turn her optics to the stars, to watch them twinkle above her in an alluring dance. Others had forced her to look back down to the reality around her and compelled her instead to help the ones that the stars shone upon. Now she felt neither impulse, only that anxious fear that you get when you are finally starting something you've been waiting to do for so long and you don't know the outcome of what it will bring.


	2. Starting Academy

_**Sorry for the wait! I had a lot of stuff come up, but I hope you like the chappie!**_

 **Bookwriter123456: _I'm glad that you're excited! I hope you like this chapter!_**

 **MySparkAndHeart: _I'm glad that I impressed you, I hope that I can continue to do so!_**

* * *

Starshine supposed that it was lucky that, though there had never been a femme enforcer before, there _were_ femme recruits. Not many, maybe one to ten ratio when compared to the mechs, but they were still there.

Unfortunately for Starshine, they femmes were either _big_ femmes, ones that you could just look at them and _know_ they either came from the mines or from the Rings, or they were fragile little things that looked like they were doing it as an attention grab more so than any actual intent. An even smaller percentage were like Starshine, there because they _needed_ to be able to beat the odds and standards put in place by their society.

One of those femmlings happened to be another Praxian. Her designation was Softlight and her lavender paint and pale blue optics were deceptive as her designation. Those orbs were like blue fire as they trained, and the femmling was sharp as a Gladiator's blade.

The first orn that Starshine had been in the Academy, she had been put up against Softlight to test as to where she should begin her lessons. The other Praxian had self defense training, but she had not chosen an actual martial art to practice. It wasn't even a fight, to be honest, with how quickly Starshine took her down. But what drew all of the instructors' attention to their fight, for Talon and Starshine were not the only two new recruits that orn, was when Starshine held out a servo to the femme that equalled her in size and pulled her back to her pedes, checking her over for any more damage than a few dents.

"I'm Starshine."

"Softlight."

"I'm sorry for, uh, knocking you to the ground so hard."

The other femmling smiled at her and then the instructors ordered a new femme to go against Starshine, and once again she was taken down. This one _did_ know diffusion, but she had never been able to use it against an opponent before, so her moves were clumsy. While Starshine was only on the forth form of Circuit Su, it was still further than most of the bots here.

It took four more advanced recruits hitting the mats to her fighting skills for them to finally pair her against a mechling. She almost felt bad when she slammed his faceplates onto the mat, vents starting to show signs of stress as they demanded more intake to cool her systems.

She froze as she looked at her next opponent, and then craned her helm up to look at him. This was the helm instructor for combat, and he was standing in a lazy stance, looking at her expectantly.

Of course, the first thing that he went for were he doorwings, trying to off balance her, but he was fighting at a skill that would be able to challenge her instead of just crush her as he would if he went full out. He was not expecting her to tuck her doorwings and continue darting and ducking around him with the ease of a youngling that played hide and seek with the other younglings in her complex as frequently as she could. Still, it was but a breem before she was finally pinned on the mat and a roar came from the crowd of onlookers. Even though she didn't move, the large mech released her as though she had struck him and helped her back to her pedes.

"Where is the other recruit?" he demanded to the crowd, and to her surprise, Talon was shoved into the circle that had formed.

"None of the other recruits can beat you two, even some of those already accepted have failed. You both have made it into the Academy. Welcome. May you continue to prove your worth."

Talon and she grinned at each other as they were allowed to get energon and watch as they whittled down the recruits even more for who were going to be able to join the Academy.

Softlight was next to be singled out, the two young Praxians bonding instantly. Talon grumbled that they were weird, but what they bonded over the most was that they somehow were both from Kaon, from different ends of the city. Another Praxian, this one a mech, joined them next, but he was from Praxus.

"Speak clearly, I can't understand a word you're saying!" he snapped when they greeted him and asked for his designation. The three Kaonians stared at him for a moment, not understanding. "Your accents, bots. I can't understand them," he clarified stiffly.

Accent? She knew that others had accents, but she had never had a problem understanding anyone from Kaon. Still, she made an effort to mimic his accent. "Heyloh. Whaht's yeour designaishun?"

"Splinter, and yours?" he asked.

"Starshine," she replied, forgetting the whole thing about the accent. He stared at her blankly before she vented and drawled out, "Stahrshyne."

"Starshine," he repeated, though he said it in a way that it was like he expected her to repeat it. Like she didn't know how to properly say her own designation.

"This ez Tahlan ahnd Sohftlyte," she added, introducing the other two that were staring at her in shock.

"You sound so weird, talking like that," Talon commented.

She shrugged a doorwing at that, not really minding.

"You know that the instructors will place you in a rudimentary language class until you don't speak with such horrific dialect, correct?" the snooty Praxian demanded.

Another mechling joined them, this one from Iacon and also insulting their accents. She was beginning to dread the coming days if this was what was in store for her.

* * *

At the end of the orn, there were forty recruits that would become students when hundreds had been there at the beginning of the orn. Like promised, Prowl was there, waiting for them when they were dismissed. Out of all forty, there were only four femmes, herself, Softlight, and two Paxians, and there were only ten with Praxian frames. None of them were from Praxus, funnily enough.

"Prowl," Talon began without preamble, "do we talk funny?"

Prowl looked at him carefully while Starshine looked at him expectantly. "What would bring up such a question?" he asked.

"There were a lot of recruits, ones that weren't from Kaon, that said that didn't speak correctly and that they couldn't understand us," Starshine replied. "Thay tahlked lyke this," she added after a moment.

There was a snort behind them as Jazz made his presence known. "Yer just full o' talen's, ain't ya?"

She looked at him curiously. "Pardon?"

"Yer accent. Better than mine," he replied before his Polyhexian accent thickened to the point that it actually sounded clear to her. "Most bots can't understand me when I talk like this, but Kaonians' speak so similarly that a lot of them mistake our accents for the other."

"I prefer it when you speak like that," Talon vented. "They all acted like we were stupid, but we were the first recruits to finish the combat portion of the testing. Next orn it will be the mental testing, and then the emotional and spark testing through the next two orns after that."

Prowl nodded and led them to a rather upstate looking apartment complex, one with trained and armed guards protecting it. It took Starshine a moment to realize that it wasn't actually an apartment complex, not all of it. It was the Iacon Enforcer Precinct, and Prowl's apartment, as the Helm of the Precinct, was in the loft that took up the entire upper level of the giant building.

Jazz gave them a cheerful goodbye and left them there while Prowl strode confidently into the building. Starshine followed quickly, gaping openly at the sheer architecture of the place and then looking around at the chuckling mechs that had noticed them. Prowl greeted a few of them, but otherwise didn't pause as he led them to the elevator. Keying in a code, the giant lift smoothly carried them to the loft.

"Whoa," she breathed, staring up at the glass ceiling above her that allowed the stars to shine through. With the lights in the apartment still off, they were the only source of light, and dim as it was, her frame started to glow. It was a special kind of paint that reacted with the radiation that came from the stars, but it was faint enough that if they hadn't been the only source of light, you never would have noticed it.

"One Who Shines Like the Stars," Talon murmured her full name in awe. She was too distracted by the stars. She could see so many more here, the light pollution not nearly what it was in Kaon.

"Indeed. Both of you get some energon and then to recharge for both of you. You have long orns ahead of you."

"Uh… where?" Talon asked needlessly as their mentor guided them through the loft to a spare berthroom that had been split in half by a divider. They wouldn't be able to see over the divider until they upgraded to their adult frames, so privacy was sufficiently achieved. On either side, it was an identical set up of a berth packed with pillows, a thick mesh blanket, a desk with datapads stacked neatly on one corner, and an empty shelf for them to put whatever they desired upon it.

Talon and Starshine both bolted for the berth closest to the window, but Starshine's size gave her an advantage, so she was perched on it and facing the mechling before he was halfway across the room.

"Slagging glitch," he muttered. He yelped as Prowl cuffed him over the helm, leaving a small dent. "What?"

"Cease your profanity or I'll wash your glossa out with solvent if I hear it in my apartment ever again," their mentor threatened.

Starshine stared at the older Paxian, not understanding. In Kaon, nobot batted an optic lense if anyone cursed, no matter how young they were. To be physically reprimanded for it… the concept was foreign for them.

"Yes, sir," Talon just said, though it looked like he was going to start swearing the moment the door close.

"I will hear you if you start cursing anywhere in the loft," Prowl added, guessing the mechling's intent as well.

With that, Prowl left them to get settled and was there before the start of the first shift to guide them to the Enforcer Academy.

Softlight eagerly greeted her at the gate, completely ignoring Prowl and Talon in favor of touching their chevron together and asking her what she thought the orn was going to be like with the emotional part of the testing.

Starlight had never shared the traditional Praxian greeting with anyone other than her creators, and she found that she actually enjoyed it. With one asking glance back at Prowl, and a nod from him, she hurried after the other femmling into the testing area. The thirty eight other recruits followed them, but no actually new recruits. Starshine and Talon had been lucky that the orn before was the one orn in the entire vorn that they allowed new recruits to come in.

"Femmlings on the left, mechlings on the right!" the Helm Instructor ordered as everyone was settled in. It was almost humorous as Starshine and Softlight stood next to the other two femmlings, a giant framed one from the Pax mines and a lithe framed one that had gotten in because of her creators' credits.

The mechlings all crowded together on the right side of the room, and a femme instructor guided the femmlings out of the testing room to different… interrogation rooms, it appeared. Starshine sat patiently, alone, in her interrogation room, barely noticing the changing in temperatures, the flickering of the lights, not realizing that she was being watched for some sort of reaction.

Starshine might have had an unfair advantage in this particular test, which included being left alone in a room for joors on end, no energon being given, no contact with anyone, and more often than not, no lights for which to see through the dark with. She didn't really rely on her optics to see, but instead used her doorwings to 'see' and 'hear' the world around her. She could 'hear' the murmurs of the instructors and 'see' where they were at, so she didn't get scared or even remotely concerned. She was used to missing energon rations with how busy she kept herself, and the sheer loneliness was nothing new to her.

All of the femmlings made it through that test, though the mechling's ranks had thinned considerably. They were all given energon and shoved into a room together, left supposedly unsupervised. Talon instantly made his way over to her and Softlight, herding them towards the door as the mechlings began to goof around, believing that there would be no reprimand for it.

One of the mechlings, one native to Iacon and obviously used to getting his way, blocked their path, smirk on his faceplates as he looked Starshine and Softlight over.

"Hey, femmlings. Whatcha hanging around this loser for? Want to come over and hang out with bots that can actually read? Who knows, maybe we could… teach you," he offered, voice high and nasally. Both femmlings scoffed at him, turning away and resuming their conversation with Talon as they shoved past the Iaconian. "Hey! I'm talking to you!"

"Go talk to someone else, then! Or better yet, why don't you go, uh, _read_ , with your friends," Softlight retorted scathingly.

* * *

Another joor passed, and while they weren't bothered by the mechling or his 'friends' again, they did keep glaring at them, or rather, Talon, as though he had personally insulted them. A few fights broke out, but they were quickly quelled, that same mechling becoming a sort of gang leader to all of them as he soundly trounced anyone that tried to stand up to him. The two femmes from Pax were smart enough to pretend to enjoy his company, because he didn't look above hitting them.

When there was no bot else to challenge his 'rule' over the recruits, he made his advance on Talon, Softlight, and herself, his followers forming a semicircle around them with him at his center.

"Hey, bots. See, we've all been discussing something that we can't understand. Maybe you can help resolve that, eh?" he sneered at them.

"What is your question?" Talon growled.

The mechling looked right at Starshine, and the Praxian mechling from the orn before stepped up next to him. "You there. Splinter says that you can, uh, translate, your accents."

"I can."

"What did he say?" It was less of a question and more of a demand.

"Whaht's yeour designaishun?"

"Blackstrike."

"Whaht's yeour questshun?" she asked next, tilting her helm to the side. She was rapidly processing the way he spoke and implementing it into her vocalizer, spontaneously changing her accent so they wouldn't have any… misunderstandings.

"No, first, what are your designations? Fair is fair," he countered.

"My designation is Starshine, his is Talon, and that is Softlight. Now what is your question?" she pressed, taking a small step forward.

The entire crowd took a wary step back, including Blackstrike. "How can a mech like that get the attention of the two prettiest femmes in the room?" he asked, charming smile countering his biting words.

"He actually uses his processor, that's how," Softlight replied without missing a beat. "Maybe you should try it."

"Maybe you should keep that pretty glossa of yours shut, femmling," Blacklight sneered back.

"Enough, both of you," Talon snapped. It was nice to know that they had followed Starshine's example by 'fixing' their accents to 'improve' their conversing skills. "Tell us what you want, Blacklight, because it is obviously more than just an answer to such a petty bait question."

Softlight backed down, the only one of their trio to actually react to the question. She seemed to realize that Talon and Starshine had some kind of plan in dealing with this, though they hadn't discussed anything at all.

Blacklight didn't seem to know what to do. He had obviously come to try to provoke Talon into attacking him, to show his dominance and place himself above all the other recruits, but neither Talon nor Starshine were fazed by his posturing.

"If you do not have anything to say, Blacklight, we were having a conversation and we would like to return to it… without you bothering us," Starshine stated flatly before turning her back to them. She tensed and barely ducked in time to avoid the swipe at her doorwings, which pressed themselves down against her dorsal plating while she spun, catching his next strike with her servo and sending the quickly deteriorating controlled crowd into utter silence. "Blacklight. Sparring was last orn, and I do not believe that it reflects well on your character to attack when your target's back is to you. Some would call it cowardly."

"Let go of me, you scrap heap!"

Stepping to the side, she tugged on his arm, tossing him to the ground with ease. He scrambled back to his pedes, his followers eagerly closing the circle so neither could escape it. "You little glitch! You're going to pay for that!"

"I am not interested in fighting you. That was in self defense. You had still been in an opportune position to strike me."

"You can shove your pretty words up your tailpipe!" he screeched, sloppily lunging for her. He was used to using his larger size and weight to his advantage against opponents that also did that. She did not have the mass to counter him directly, so she sidestepped and stuck out her pede, tripping him into the crowd. With him momentarily disoriented, she spun and dashed behind Talon, who stepped in front of her defensively even as the crowd waited on edge for Blacklight's response to it.

"Now who's the coward?" he snarled.

"She said that she doesn't want to fight you. Knock off your 'higher than thou' act. We're all recruits here, we all want to pass the tests. None of us are above anyone else, and we're going to end up working together. As _equals._ So everyone else, stop acting like he's Primus incarnate, and Blacklight, just stop before you force our servos and you get hurt, because I've seen her fight, and you wouldn't stand a chance. It says more about her character to refuse to fight a weaker opponent than it does to stupidly try to take off a Praxian's doorwings when their back is turned."

"Oh, you think that the little runt could beat me if I took off her stupid doorwings?"

"No. I know that she could rip you apart piece by piece, catalog each and every part to every internal system in your frame, and file it away before your spark extinguished. Keep that in mind."

With that, Talon turned away from the other mechling, as though he was no longer worth even looking at, and placed a servo on Starshine's shoulderguard. "You alright, Shiny?"

She looked at him with a death inducing glare. "Do not call me Shiny, or I'll start calling you 'Tally'."

"So be it, because it's sticking," he chuckled, his accent returning in full force.

"How did you two keep a cool helm during that?" Softlight asked as they retreated from the embarrassed crowd.

"I channelled Shiny, and Shiny has insane self control. Or no emotions, but that's a less likely option."

Starshine rolled her optics and went back to her silent observation of the other bots in the room, patiently waiting for the adults to come back. Even if was more cruel and idiotically arrogant of Blacklight to think he could rule over the other recruits, it had given the place some semblance of order, and now without it, small squabbles were breaking out all over the place. There were only about thirty recruits left, including the trio, but they were all spread out now, breaking into little gangs like the one Softlight, Talon, and herself had made.

"This is going to end badly," she suddenly commented, interrupting Talon as he talked about his time alone and how tense he had been. He had been expecting some kind of interrogation.

They followed her gaze to the crowd of mechs that were separating even further. "So? Not our problem."

"Blacklight had the right idea, but not the right plan to carry it out. He was making sure that no one could form into separate gangs, but he used force to do it, and now that he's been, uh, dethroned, no one is there to stop the fights."

Talon sighed. "Why does it matter?"

"You said so yourself that we're going to be working with them. You can't work with someone that you want to pound into the ground."

"I work well with you- I mean, not that I wanted to pound you into the ground- it's just that, I always tried to one up you at Academy- just, just forget that I said anything."

"Competition between peers and all out fighting because of discrimination are two drastically different things… but that gives me an idea… maybe we can… get this to be a competition instead of a fight," she mused, processor whirring.

"That's… actually not a bad idea. But how do we do it?"

Before they could attempt to plan, the doors slid open with an ominous hiss and the Helm Instructor stalked in, all the fighting and talking coming to a literally screeching halt.

"Recruit Blacklight, front and center!" he barked sternly.

The mech, who she actually took the time to examine, stalked over to the instructor, arrogance in every fall of his black pedes, towering youngling frame nothing compared to the instructor's giant bulk.

"I should dismiss you from the Academy for your behavior. Attempting to rule over your peers as you did, then attacking when the rookie's back was turned! Dispicable behavior, and if it weren't for the rookies' return behavior, you would be walking your aft back out of this building! As it is… Rookies Starshine, Talon, and Softlight, front and center."

Rookies? That would imply that they had passed this orn's tests and would be advancing to the spark scan part of the tests. But the orn was only halfway through! It was too early to allow them through!

Still, she padded nearly silently right behind Talon and Softlight, sensors keeping a cursory watch over the bots to her back as she stood in front of the giant mech. "Sir?" she asked, her quiet question echoed by her… friends.

"You can go home early today. We expect to see you early next orn for the spark testing. I have already called your… guardians to pick you up," he reported, gesturing for them to leave. "As for the rest of you, you will be split up into teams and-"

She stopped listening as Talon all but dragged her from the room, her processor still trying to understand the instructor's words from moments ago. "We-we aren't in trouble?" she finally managed as they made it to the actual doors.

Softlight seemed to be in a similar state of shock, and Talon groaned as though he had just been given a monumental task. "No! We're not in trouble! This is a good thing!"

"Are you sure they aren't still testing us to see if we'll actually leave?" Softlight worried before Starshine could say the same thing.

"Yes, I am sure! Look, there's Prowl! Come on, Shiny, stop being paranoid."

"Don't call me Shiny!" she protested with a vent, finally allowing her processor to calm down. This wasn't a test, she wasn't going to fail.

"Hello, sir," Talon greeted politely, suddenly not as confident as he had sounded just a moment before.

"You two did well this orn," was all Prowl said before gesturing for them to follow him. "Unfortunately, I still have to work for a few more joors. Do you mind waiting in the Precinct for that time?"

"No, not at all," Talon replied for both of them.

Prowl stopped as though remembering something, and turned back to them, pulling out two datapads from his subspace. He handed the pads to them, waiting until they turned it on and groaned as they realized that it was an aptitude test.

"You can both work on that while I am working."

"These take joors to complete and are inaccurate!" Talon whined.

"While they can be inaccurate, your answers _do_ give me an insight to how you solve problems and will assist in teaching methods for the both of you," Prowl continued on as though Talon hadn't spoken.

Starshine just flicked her doorwings in acknowledgement and began completing the test. She used her doorwings to ensure that she stayed behind Prowl as he guided them through the city, and also to ensure she didn't bump into anyone.

It also served to avoid any of the gazes that might have aimed their way towards her as they entered the Precinct and she Talon were ordered to wait in a conference room that wasn't going to be used that orn.

She learned fast that Talon fidgeted while he worked. Alot. It was as though his frame couldn't sit still as he fiddled with his stylus, tapped a random beat on the metal table, stomped his heel lightly on the metal floor, and basically made _noise_ as he worked. Her doorwings were twitching after ten breems, and she had taken to glaring at him after half a joor.

"Why are you fidgeting?" she finally demanded.

"Huh?" he asked smartly as he looked up from his pad. "I'm not."

"Yes, you are. You keep tapping the table and twirling your stylus and stomping your pede and making noise, and I want to know why," she retorted.

"Oh… I didn't realize that I had been doing that. It's not intentional, I just need to have something in the background, and… I don't have any music currently," he explained sheepishly while rubbing the back of his helm.

"Then _hum or sing_ or something!"

He looked absolutely mortified at her words. "I-uh well, I… I'm not a very good singer," he answered quickly. She blinked at him in patient understanding.

"I don't care. I can't take that… chaotic noise that you're making while I'm concentrating on not manipulating the results on this aptitude test!" she huffed, then returned to the datapad.

"I don't get it," he said after a long moment. "How can you zone everything out when there is a bunch of bots in the room, with their messing everything up and putting it out of order, but you can't handle a little white noise."

"Because it's easier when it's more than one bot making noise. Then it turns into music, of sorts, and it's beautiful," she protested.

Another long silence, and she wrote out five more answers before she paused, hearing a low, slightly offkey humming coming from Talon. With a small smile, she angled her doorwings so she could 'hear' him better and continued her work, not at all bothered by the slightly off notes that mumbled their way from his vocalizer.

She was nearly finished when she heard him stop and felt him look at her. "You sing."

She looked up in mild interest. "Yes, I sing," she replied, thinking that it was a question.

"No, I mean, sing. Now. It's only fair," Talon explained.

She blinked at him as though he had spoken a different language. "Y-you want _me_ to sing?"

"Yeah. I did my bad singing, now you have to do yours. It's only fair."

She still wasn't sure about it, but she looked back at her pad and started humming the lullaby that her femme creator had always sung to her. It wasn't really singing, but it was just as much as Talon had been doing.

She finished her final answer and submitted the test, looking back up at Talon to find that he was staring at the wall, vents heaving as though something was blocking them. She stopped humming and bolted to his side, grabbing his shoulderguard to get his attention. She looked at him, and the almost collapsed as he pulled her close, keening as though in agony.

"T-Talon! A-are you alright?" she asked after a few breems of the large black mechling sobbing. His vents hiccuped and he pulled away from her, coolant streaming from his optics.

"Y-yeah… I apologize… That lullaby. My grand femme creator used to sing it to me when she sparkling sat me. She… she terminated not long ago from an accident in one of the factories. It just… reminded me of her… I apologize."

"It… It's the lullaby my femme creator used to sing to me when I was a sparkling. I apologize for upsetting you."

"No, no, it's… it's not your fault, you didn't know. You are… very good at humming."

She snorted at that, shaking her helm. "It's just vibrations. Nothing much to it."

"It's _hard!_ " he insisted. There was a knock on the door before Prowl walked in.

"What is hard?" he asked.

"Humming," Talon replied, EM field pulling into his frame in his embarrassment.

"It is simply vibrations. It does not require anything more than to calculate the pitch and meet it," Prowl replied blandly.

Talon looked back and forth between Prowl and Starshine, then groaned, burying his helm in his arms, grumbling something about Praxians not understanding normal bot problems with music.

"Have you completed the test?" Prowl vented patiently.

"Uh…" Talon froze, then looked sheepishly up at his mentor. "I have a few questions left…"

"How many is a few?" Prowl pushed, giving his new apprentice a look.

"Half?"

To their surprise, Prowl smirked at him and shook his helm. "From now on, you should finish your work as soon as you can so it does not consume you as it builds up," he advised wisely.

"Yes, sir," Talon agreed sheepishly, pouring himself over the test to complete it as quickly as possible. It was still another joor before he finished, the atmosphere awkward from Prowl and Starshine just standing there, watching him work.

"Thank you for completing it," Prowl said to both of them as he took back the datapads back and gestured for them to follow him back into the Precinct. This time she didn't have a datapad to hide behind from their stares, so she positioned herself close to Talon, who seemed just as nervous as she was.

"Everyone, I have an announcement," Prowl called when he reached the podium that was set on a small stage so he could be seen clearly and address everyone without having to try to peer over the larger bot's helms.

With the precision of trained veterans of combat, the Enforcers moved, the larger bots standing in the back against the far wall while the minibots lazily took over the area closest to the stage. With the amount of efficiency that had been done before them, Starshine couldn't help but forget her shyness and begin to run analyses over the Enforcers.

"These are Talon," Prowl began, gesturing to the black mechling, "and Starshine. As you know, I just returned from Kaon while escorting the Prime and Protectorate to a meeting there regarding the recent strikes in both the mines and the factories. The meeting was cancelled due to a coordinated attack on one of the senators. Due to a threat of an attack on the Kaon Youngling Academy, we arrived there under the guise of simply having extra time in our visit. While there, we sat in on an advanced youngling lecture that took place. While there, we met these two younglings, who were at the top of the Academy, tied for the highest rank. Both expressed the desire to become Enforcers and have shown extremely high aptitudes for the duty, as well as taking preemptive measures such as combat classes. I have decided to take them both on as apprentices, and they are both going through the testing process at the Enforcer Academy. Are there any questions?"

"What are they showing most aptitude in?" a smokey grey Praxian asked with an almost knowing grin.

"Starshine, Talon, that is Smokescreen, the head of the tactical division. Both Starshine and Talon have very high aptitudes for special operations, and Starshine also shows promise as a tactician if that is what she so chooses," Prowl reported.

"Right, because she has the same processor as you," Smokescreen pressed.

Starshine frowned softly at that and looked at Prowl in silent permission to speak, which he gave with a flick of his doorwings. "I do not have the same processor as Prowl has, mine is slightly more advanced, as an effect of increasing knowledge as to how to properly balance such an advanced system in a sparkling or youngling processor."

"You mean you don't glitch?" the grey tactician pressed. She frowned again.

"I do not know, I have not experienced any destabilizing or extreme emotional imbalances as of yet," she answered with a shrug of her doorwing. "It has yet to be determined if my balance systems are capable of functioning when brought under such stress."

The gathering of adults blinked at her as though she had spoken in a different language, and she faintly wondered if she had went back to her native accent, but a scan told her that she had not. She glanced over at Prowl, hoping that he would have an answer, but his doorwings were in a decidedly yet subtle amused position. Her doorwings wilted as she tried to understand exactly what she had said that was the cause of such a reaction.

Talon just shrugged, not understanding, either. That was just how she spoke around adults, and it wasn't anything odd to him. "Don't look at me, they're the ones staring like you said you can talk to Primus."

"So, Prowl, who's the more mature one of the two?" Jazz, who seemed to have materialized from nowhere, asked, snickering.

That did not bode well with Starshine, who was definitely not used to bots being able to sneak up on her, and she flinched away, staring at him widely. "Where the frag did you come from?" Talon demanded, also startled.

She hit him on his lower chassis, now even more embarrassed as the assembly snickered at the murderous look that Prowl gave Talon. "Talon, watch your glossa!" she hissed at him almost inaudibly.

"Oh, sl-scrap, I didn't mean-" Talon began, actually getting flustered as he apologized to everyone for his language. Prowl's glare didn't falter as he grabbed Talon's scruffbar and hauled him up into his apartment, calling over his shoulder that the meeting was dismissed. Before she could stop herself, she met Talon's horrified and embarrassed optics and made a decision.

"Prowl, sir, he didn't mean to curse," she said quietly, and her mentor stopped. "It was a reaction to Jazz startling him, not intentional disobedience to you. You can't punish someone for falling back into habit when they are startled, especially when it has only been an orn since you first ordered us to not use profanity. Bots can't change their habits that quickly. Also… You did not say anything about not cursing outside the loft."

She looked up at Prowl calculatingly, waiting for him to reply. Instead, it was Smokescreen who did so, "So, Starshine, do you play Sets?"

"I am unfamiliar with it," she answered, keeping her gaze on her mentor. The Praxian finally released Talon, who comically showed his still youngling status by darting over and _hiding_ behind her.

"Thank you," he hissed to her.

"It appears that I need to be clearer with the rules. Talon and Starshine, so long as you are my apprentices, I expect that you do not utter profanity inside the confines of this building or when we are out in the city. You both know the consequences of doing so. Jazz, I have told you many times not to use the vents to navigate through the building because it startles bots, and I _will_ lock you in the brig for it if you keep doing it. Starshine… there is a datapad in my office with a full list of the rules of the Precinct. I would like you to go over them and highlight any loopholes you may find and submit to me potential corrections. That will be your project for as long as it is until you have completed it. Smokescreen, do not encourage them."

There were two sets of lowered doorwings, one pair of lowered optics, and one grinning former assassin in response to his public rebuke. "Now, come, Talon, Starshine, you are going to be undergoing the spark scan next orn and it is less unpleasant experience if you are rested, so I've heard."

The abashed younglings followed after their mentor, the Enforcers completely silent. She flicked her doorwings in surprise when as soon as the door slid shut, loud, to her, laughter erupted from it, and it was all she could do to not stick her helm back in the room and demand what was so funny.

* * *

"Prowl… I am really sorry for cursing," Talon said for perhaps the seventeenth time in a joor.

Starshine glanced up from her spot on her berth, glaring at him. It wasn't that she minded reading the rules. It was just that there was so many of them, and every time he spoke, she got distracted, and she was trying to work!

"I heard you the first twenty three times, Talon. It was an accident," Prowl said again. Apparently she had miscounted how many times Talon had apologized.

"I know, but then why is Starshine getting punished for it?"

"She is not being punished. She is ensuring that there are no loopholes in the rules so you cannot avoid consequence, even if the action was accidental."

She decided that it was best to just ignore them for now and continue working. She paused at one, trying to understand the circumstances that would lead to it being created. "Prowl, why is it a rule that no one is allowed to weld the minibots to the ceilings or walls to keep them from getting under pede? Especially in reference to Medic Ratchet?"

Prowl looked over at her almost… sheepishly. "Medic Ratchet has a rather infamous reputation for taking extreme measures to ensure the wellbeing of his patients. The minibots are able to easily slip away, so to prevent them, and also to prevent their comrades, from invoking his wrath, he and a few Enforcers started welding them to the walls."

"You expect us to trust him?" Talon demanded like Prowl had lost his processor.

"Yes, I expect you to trust him. He is the best medic on Cybertron. There is nothing to fear from him."

"Medic Ratchet and Enforcer Jazz are not permitted to be in the same building without supervision after the eradication of the tactical analysis room that was destroyed during a routine checkup that dissolved into cannon fire and flying wrenches."

Starshine looked up at Prowl. "Enforcer Jazz was forced into stasis from concussive blow to the helm from Medic Ratchet."

"How did you get that report?" Prowl demanded.

"It was attached," she answered, handing the pad back to him and sighing as her HUD lit up with a recharge warning. Once again, she ignored it. She had so many more rules to work on!

"Recharge, now, both of you. Starshine, you do not need to review the rules that would not pertain to yourself. Stick to the rules of my home, it's in the next tab over. You may work on it more next orn."


End file.
